1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a device to be used in cooperation with a massage or chiropractic table, tanning bed, medical treatment table, or other support structure in which a comfortable surface for a patient's head is provided as he/she is undergoing therapy. Specifically, the invention provides a head support apparatus that supports a pillow on which the patient's head can rest in face-down orientation while still permitting normal breathing.
2. Prior Art
During therapy it is necessary that the patient be in a prone position on a massage table, thereby allowing the medical attendant to work on him with maximum efficiency. The patient usually lays on the massage table in either a face-down or face-up position depending on the work being done by the medical attendant. Early tables included a facial opening within a top surface that would allow the patient to lay on the table in a face-down position with his face in the opening. The location of the opening within the perimeter of the table often limited the medical assistant from complete access to the patient's head and neck.
Discomfort to the patient on this earlier table and the lack of accessibility of the patient's head and neck to the medical attendant led to the use of an attachable head support device at the table end. The head support device protrudes from the top end of the table. This protruding device is a planar plate member that supports a pillow and positions the pillow at approximately the same lateral plane as the table.
This prior art headrest included a plate with attachment means which was coupled to the massage table. Generally a pillow rests freely and unattached on the plate and can be changed at any time. A problem that exists with the freely resting pillow support is that the pillow lacks lateral stability. As the patient is moving the pillow may slide off the base support and cause the patient's head to contact the hard plate that supports the pillow. Despite this risk and inconvenience, such freely moveable pillows continue to be used to facilitate rapid switching of pillows for each new patient.
Another reason this freely resting pillow is still being used is that the height of the pillows can be changed by simply stacking more pillows on top of each other. The stacked pillows provide a very comfortable surface for the head and effectively raise or lower the height of the head. It is important that the head support pillow be versatile, in that the height is adjustable due to the different needs of each patient. This height shift is necessary, for example, when a patient is shifted from the face down position to a face up position, wherein additional height is needed under the head. The conventional practice of stacking pillows not only provides an insecure head support, but also interrupts the massage or therapeutic process because the patient must usually sit up in order to allow the medical attendant to change the height of the pillow.
The support pillows are generally stacked on a head support base which is usually attached to the table by using two rods that protrude from the head support base and slide into openings in the therapeutic table. These sliding rods allow the head support to be adjusted in relation to the height of the patient. In order for the attachment means to function properly, the distance between the rods must correspond to the distance between each hole in the table. Due to the lack of a universally accepted size of head support rods, there is sometimes an inconsistency between the attachment means of the head support base and the attachment means of the therapeutic table, therefore the medical assistant is limited to the type of head support he can use by the type of therapeutic table he uses.